GnuPG code in Mozilla: GPL issues?

Werner Koch wk@gnupg.org
Thu, 10 Feb 2000 11:56:13 +0100


On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Anthony Clark wrote:


> I recently posted to netscape.public.mozilla.crypto about OpenPGP support in
> the Mozilla mail/news components. I wanted to reuse code from gnupg (Yes, I
> am lazy!), but I was warned of probable GPL violations if I did this.
Yes, the MPL and the GPL are not compatible. But you don't have to link them together. Just use fork/exec to run gpg - this is perfectly legal. There is also a special interface to control gpg from another program (see tools/shmtest.c). A more convenient way would be to use the PGG wrapper library, this is also GPLed but maybe we can convinmce Michael to make an exception for MPL. I am very interested to make Mozilla (or even Netscape) OpenPGP aware. Werner